ANTI-PERSONNEL MINES TERRIFY CIVILIANS AND HARM ECONOMIES
15-01-1996 18:30:00 | Armenia | World News
GENEVA, Jan 15 (AFP -NT) - International attempts resume
here Monday to curb the use of anti-personnel mines, of which
110 million are estimated to be lying in wait for the unwary in
64 countries. A similar number are in weapons stocks worldwide.
Landmines dating back to World War II kill and mutilate
around 2,000 people every month, make large tracts of land
uncultivable and deter the return of refugees, causing a massive
drain on national economies.
Used more and more as terror weapons against civilian
populations rather than for purely military purposes, they stay
in place long after conflicts are over. Many nowadays are
largely made of plastic, and almost impossible to detect.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross,
which wants a complete ban on such weapons, 25 states are in
real crisis because of mines on their soil.
The worst hit areas are Angola, Eritrea, Mozambique,
Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Bosnia and Iraqi
Kurdistan, says the ICRC.
Hundreds of thousands of mines in Somalia bar herders from
their pastures, while in Libya 27 percent of cultivable land
still has mines laid during the North African conflict of World
War II.
Even a short conflict, like that between Georgia and the
breakaway republic of Abkhazia, can produce dozens of casualties
from mines.
According to the ICRC a third of mine victims who are not
killed lose a limb. A child wounded at the age of 10 will need
as it grows a succession of 25 artificial limbs costing a total
3,125 dollars, and in many countries, where a typical monthly
income is no more than 15 dollars will have to make do with
crutches.
The purchase price of a mine varies between three and 30
dollars, but the cost of lifting it and defusing it is between
300 and 1,000 dollars, while for every 5,000 mines cleared one
disposal expert is killed and two more wounded.
The cost of clearing the world of landmines is put at 33
billion dollars, while at the present rate it will take some
1100 years. And that is providing that all new mine-laying
stops forthwith.
But a UN conference on mine-clearing held in Geneva in July
obtained only 20 million of the 75 million dollars sought.
Meanwhile in the whole of last year 100,000 mines were cleared,
and an estimated two million more were laid.
gl/mb AFP /AA1234/130553 GMT JAN 96